I’m  Alan, and welcome to my piano blog.

In this and future blogs to come, I’m going to share my wonderful experiences of playing the piano by hearing, by imparting useful tips I’ve observed and learned along the way.

I’m a self-taught performing pianist who does not read conventional music, but instead learned to play the piano and new songs entirely by hearing, and writing this music in my own alphabetical notation.

I do not possess formal music qualifications, and have opted never to - rather than ‘can’t’ - learn to read conventional music.

However, I would argue that, against  an absence of years of music theory, I have gathered first-hand ‘knowledge-by-observation and playing, from having learned well over a thousand songs by hearing.  This is what I’m hoping to impart in my blogs.

Once upon a time….

I had my music-related tantrum when, at around the tender age of 6 in the now far-away island of my birthplace, Singapore, I slammed the piano cover shut once and for all (or I had thought), when my mum tried in vain to given me formal piano lessons by having a teacher make me memorize those confusing squiggly notes, and play ‘Michael Row Your Boat’ just a few hundred times (OK, I exaggerate… but the song still rings in my adult head).

I had my next musical encounter as a hippie-wannabe during my early teenage years (when Fleetwood Mac was a British blues band), I was strumming basic chords on the guitar but didn’t get very far, after it sadly dawned on me that I simply didn’t have an acceptable voice to sing in accompaniment. I did catch the emotionally-wrenching blues rhythm though….

Then one day a few years later, I stumbled upon a music shop, and there was this older guy making great sounds like a one-man band.   I was instantly hooked on discovering the spinet organ - an electronic version of the church organ, with its own bass pedals you play with the left foot, a selection of authentic-sounding instruments, and a groovy (the predecessor of cool)  choice of drum/rhythm beats.

After some pestering, my mum (who still recalled well my dramatic ‘dumping-of-the-piano’ incident) got me a basic model, and the organ demonstrator became my teacher (…Where in the world are you now, Ken ? )

Ken, a professional pianist and organist who himself could hardly read music, taught me the organ for about 6 months, based pretty much on observation and the scribbling of alphabets as notes… and then I basically figured out things from there.    I discovered later that he could hardly himself read conventional notes, but was somehow able to teach those students who preferred to read, but who could never fool him due to his powerful hearing and experience.

The great thing about Ken (that’s not him in the picture) was that he  was a generous and ‘fun’ mentor.  Tuition fees were never an object.   He often took me and a bunch of his other young students to the piano lounge at the hotel where he performed, and nudged each one of us to show off our limited playing skills and overcome our performance nerves.

A few key lessons from my ‘hearing’ teacher Ken are still implanted in my mind:

- learn to play all genres of music, as long the melodies are nice and organ/piano-friendly’;

- pay attention to the different individual rhythm patterns (viz.. drum beats like bossa nova, cha cha), asif you were playing with an imaginary drummer in a band or  orchestra;

- keep listening to all sorts of music and observing closely how other better pianists and musicians perform, and learn from their techniques.

As I progressed on my organ playing skills and played stints at restaurants, I began developing a very practical and proven system of learning any song I chose. I have learned well over a thousand songs this way.

It was during my college years that, in the absence of an organ,  I lifted the cover of a piano again, and toyed with trying to apply my organ techniques to the piano.   You can imagine the stiffness!  My left hand just did not know what to do.  My left leg desired to step on a bass pedal but there was of course nothing of the sort on the piano.   But I persisted over the years, hearing closely to music played by pianists, and I began to figure out how I could adapt my organ knowledge of playing the bass and rhythm patterns into playing the left hand on the piano  (Playing the right hand was not a problem).

Meantime, the electronic organ became a virtually extinct instrument, and I became ever more determined to master the piano by myself, and kept playing it with my wide repertoire of songs that I had written for the organ.

Perhaps that’s where my leapfrogging of musical notation originated: because I had a background in writing my music simply in alphabets and playing alternative instruments like the guitar and piano, I inadvertently bypassed the years of drudgery of learning to read those note symbols, as necessitated by conventional piano training.  At the end of day, it still worked out, and I’m playing the piano but not reading music sheets - only my own alpha notes.   No big disadvantage here.

One day, I plucked up the cheek to advertise my services as a wedding and event pianist; after, all, I used to play the organ publicly, so what’s the big deal?  I’ve been gigging as a pianist since, and here I am now, trying to share my playing knowledge.

But it is indeed, a wonderful skill and goes like that… I hear a song I like, I go to YouTube and search for the video, download and convert into an MP3, and then learn the entire song in under an hour on my cheap Casio keyboard , and replay it on the piano.

Just like that. I can learn up to 6-7 new songs on a good night.

It’s not so much about talent, but knowing how to do it.  And I’d like to share this with you in my future blogs.

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You may be someone who has found that learning to play the piano can be challenging and oftentimes frustrating.  You perhaps thought that there’s no easy way to learn this instrument other than by the traditional way, i.e., step by step through long drawn-out music theory lessons; and the hope of having a good music teacher to guide you through it all.

Without a doubt, many musicians have developed their skills that way, but many others have fallen on the wayside giving up their interest out of sheer boredom, frustration, and lack of progress. They‘re left with the conclusion that conventional music sight reading and theory were the only ways they could learn music on the piano.

But let me tell you, there is an alternative way you could progress your music learning - perhaps a little faster - through hearing and observation.

This is especially so if you already have some musical knowledge, E.g., from having taken some months of piano lessons, previously played another instrument (especially the guitar, as in my case), or can even hum or sing in tune to a song!

Think about this…   If you can hum or whistle in tune to a song, why would you not be able to translate that to touch (i.e., fingers) on the keyboard?   Why would you not at the same time be able to also  quickly write down those notes you’ve just touched, so that you in fact have  written down the melody of that song?  And with the latter, why would you then not be able to play them back against the song?

Does this sound like talent, or a special gift? Many would say yes, but to me, I think it’s more about knowing how to, and then having patience and persistence, which gradually grow into a passion.   So I’d say learning by hearing is in the most part a skill.

I suppose for some people who simply can’t tell that they’re obviously out of tune when mimicking a song’s tune,  I guess they’d need to just need to recognize this (maybe do a recording!), and then work harder on training this basic ability first.

There are a lot of well-known musicians out there who do not read music: artistes like The Beatles, Erroll Garner and Chet Baker Wes Montgomery, Buddy Rich, and who knows how many, because this may not be an ability some pros would want to reveal.

Benefits of hearing

By being able to learn  through playback and listening of a song that you like on a music player such as your MP3 player or laptop, you can learn an unlimited number of songs, even if music sheets for them are unavailable. This makes music learning very gratifying….

You are able to listen closely to the way an original song is supposed to be played. You also begin to know and trust that what you are hearing and writing down is the most accurate deciphering of the song; and it’s not someone else interpreting it for you, like in a music sheet.

You can develop the ability to tell instantly when a part you hear (E.g., another interpretation of the song) doesn’t sound right, or if it sounds even better than your version… in which case you can find out aurally  what makes it so (a different chord, a right finger touch, a different rhythm, etc.), in order to improve on your own version. 

Have you noticed that the piano playback on many music sheets just doesn’t sound quite like the real/original thing?  That’s often because whoever wrote the sheet has neither  closely listened to the original piece, or isn’t even the the original arranger.

Also, don’t assume that the music sheet is ‘the real thing’. How could it be?  A writer - whom I suspect could well be someone other than the original composer/arranger - has to consider all the instruments and singers in a song ,and decide which parts he’s going to include in writing the piece for publishing…  So like it or not, it’s only his interpretation of what the song should sound like when played on a single instrument , the piano.  It may turn out not be that great a representation of the  song that you’ve come to like

If you have the ability to hear the song and work out your own interpretation and notes, it may be an even better version than the published one…. which is why there are so many good versions of the original piece.

By practicing listening to a song closely, you begin to discern the different instrumental melodies accompanying a main melody or singer, and the right finger accents/touch that you can then try to replicate, and make your playing sound more interesting and authentic.  You also add those extra counter-melody notes to enrich the song, which are often missing in the commercial music sheets  (These are the ‘filler notes’ sung by an accompanying singer or played by an instrumentalist, could even be  an arpeggio, in between the main melodies.  Without them , your piano playing will sound ‘hollow’).

With a hearing ability, if say, there are several versions of a song you like, you can even choose to download them all; then learn your favorite version, or even extract/combine interesting variations from the best  of these versions, to make up your own ideal version for the piano.

Last by least and best of all, learning by hearing means that your piano music will almost always be FREE !  Most of the songs you’ll ever want to learn is probably already up on YouTube.  All you need to do is download and convert any song to an .mp3 file - which is usually of a high aural qualify, and learn it - no buying of CDs or music sheets.

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When I learn a song by hearing,  I am essentially trying to decipher the notes making up its melody, bass and chords.   With all that in mind, here are the tools that I use (also watch the video):

1. A piano keyboard

This can be a full-sized 88-key digital piano, or just a ‘fun’ electronics keyboard (with at least 61 keys) like the ones made by Casio, Yamaha, Roland and Kawai that are available quite cheaply. In the USA, one could be bought on eBay or Craigslist for between $50-$100, shipped . I prefer using this (my Casio CTK-601 is  pictured) as it doesn’t take up too much space on the dining table, and is easier to work with in front of my laptop (where I of course store my music, and play them on  the WinAmp media player).

The above electronic keyboard typically features some variations of piano (which really is the only instrument you’d need for learning songs) plus other instruments; and you should of course buy one that comes with an electrical adapter.

Most importantly, for the purpose of learning by hearing, you need to ensure that this keyboard comes with a transposer or transposition feature.

2. An MP3 music player

This device (a) stores the music you wish to learn; and (b) must be able adjustable back and forth so you can re-listen to parts of the song as you are progressively learning it.

Just as a technology flashback, during the 1970s, I had to use a cassette recorder (picture) to learn my songs. I used to go into a record (as in Long Playing vinyl albums) store to select tracks off artistes’ albums, paying 25c for each track that I wanted to learn. The record seller would then record these songs onto a cassette tape, which I would pick up and excitedly take home and insert into my tape player. I would learn each song by rewinding and fast forwarding the tape, accompanying it on the organ. Every now and then, the fragile tape would entangle in the unit’s rollers, while the cassette also diminished in its ability to rewind – difficult times!

Fast-forward to the 2000s, and things have certainly changed quite a bit!

Today, you could pay 99c a tune for a download from the internet, or check out sharing websites like Limewire, Bearshare or Seeqpod, or from the tens of midi sites out there; or for my preferred source, YouTube.

Consider this… if you can then hear and learn the original song, paying 99c a song is a lot cheaper than spending several times more on music sheets.

I just download a video from YouTube of a song I like, convert it into an MP3; or I could also buy and download a song music I want from the internet; or I could even ‘rip’ the title from a CD from .cda into an .mp3 file and store it in my ‘Songs To Learn’ folder.

I then play it back using the WinAmp player on my computer, which I prefer because it looks compact on my screen and sounds clean; and I can use the ‘C’ key on my keypad laptop to stop and play the song, and the > and < to rewind and fast-forward 5 seconds - very efficient for a repetitive activity like learning by hearing.

Of course, you can also use any other MP3 player with a stop and ‘rewind’ tab, like an iPod. I just suspect there’s less ‘wear and tear’ doing this clicking action on a software (such as WinAmp or Windows Media player) on the PC or laptop, than continuous depressing of a button on a ‘hardware’ device like an iPod.  It is also not advisable to learn by re-playing the  CD.

3. Headphones or Speakers

Next in my tools is the use of a reasonable pair of headphones to hear the song clearer, as opposed to just turning on the speakers on the laptop.

You must not only be able to hear the melody clearly, but also and more importantly the song’s bass notes because, as we shall see later, they help indicate what the chords are.   I use the Sony MDR-V150 (picture) headphones because it’s cheap, lightweight and comfortable, and gives great bass audibility.

4. Book for writing your notes

As you will want to write the notes of the song you’re learning, you will need either a plain exercise book with ruled lines, along with one black (for the melody notes) and one red (for the bass notes) ballpoint pen (if you’re writing in alphabets or your own other notation). If you can write conventional music notes, then use the appropriate music blank sheets instead.

5. A work table

To learn songs in the way I do, you should be comfortably seated on a table (say, in the kitchen or dining), and able to lay back on a chair as you patiently work out a song. You should not be stretching back and forth on the back-less piano chair, bending over to write on a book on the piano rest, or straining to adjust your music player.

After you learn 4-5 songs successfully using my hearing method, you may finally discover what ‘hearing heaven’ is! …. It is sitting down comfortably at your table space, with your laptop, keyboard, notebook and headphone all at hand, then surfing onto your favorite music download site, and asking yourself….

“Let me see… how many and which songs do I want to hear and learn tonight?”.

It’s that relaxing and fun when you have these above simple tools, and a command of hearing!

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This blog is not intended to teach in detail how I learn a song by hearing , but just to give you a quick idea of what I do. The individual steps are of course more involved, and I’ll go into them in greater detail in other  blogs .

When I learn a song by hearing, I am essentially trying to decipher 5 elements making up its arrangement:

1. the rhythm or ‘beat’;

2. the main melody;

3. the accompanying counter-melodies (if any);

4. the basses;

5. the chords.

My favorite source of songs to learn is YouTube, from which I download the song’s  .flv video file into a folder in my laptop, and then covert that into an .mp3 song file using an easily-available .flv to .mp3 converter program.   I next listen to this  .mp3 song file back and forth, to learn it.

Watch these two videos on how to convert YouTube video to Mp3 song files…

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Wearing a pair of headphones (with good bass) partially on my ears (so I can hear both the music and the keyboard), I first play and listen to the song to determine the key it is in, and also to get a feel of the song structure and arrangement.

If it’s a more challenging key that has lots of flats and sharps (E.g., B, Db, F#) in its scale, I decide whether I’d like to learn this song in a simpler key, like C, F or G, or even D or Eb. This is just a matter of convenience and preference, as these keys are easier to both play in and to teach with. See my blog on figuring out a song’s key and transposing it.

After figuring out the key I’d like to learn the song on, I then commence to learn the entire song in several steps:

STEP 1

I listen to a few notes each time, constantly press ‘pause’ and ‘back’ on the music player, at the same time quickly transcribing what I’ve heard by playing the notes on the keyboard - often humming along as well - them in alphabetical notes (as I don’t read or write conventional music notation) onto my lined exercise book.  I keep doing this until the end of the song when I’ve written the entire melody.

This is not as tedious as it sounds, because often the melody repeats itself with the same notes (i.e. most of the notes in Melody 1 would probably be the same as for Melody 2 in the Song Structure), and you get very quick at doing this after learning many songs.   Of course, should be reasonably familiar with moving around the keyboard, and knowing which notes are the correct ‘high’ or ‘low’ pitch one to press, in order to approximate the notes you are hearing on the song.

STEP 2

After writing the whole Melody of the song, I then replay the song on my music player,  but this time I listen to the basses.

Listening to each bass sound/note accompanying a chord – before it changes to another chord - gives a very good clue as to what that chord actually is.  More about this in another blog.

Furthermore, after learning a lot of songs and being able to recognize the more typical chord progressions, you find yourself able to quite reliably predict what the next chord is going to be for the song by just listening to flow of the melody.

Like the way guitar notes are written, I write these chords just above the melody note where they’re supposed to be held or played.

STEP 3

Finally, I play over the notes and chords that I’ve written in accompaniment with the song.  This is to check for accuracy, and also to match up the timing with original version.

You can write your timing based on your music knowledge, or in my case I just play the notes I’ve written  against the song a few times until I get it about right and use cues in my alphabetical notes to help me as well.  It’s not much different from you singing to a song and knowing when to sing in sync or timing with it.

Depending on its complexity, it takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour to learn and write a song.

Finally, I play the song on the notes I’ve written, re-checking as needed against the original song. The way I decide to perform the song is then a matter of interpretation, touch, and improvisation  (which comes with experience and a lot of hearing to all sorts of music), and I may modify some notes and even chords accordingly.

I then transcribe these roughly-written notes neatly to my final Music Book…and that becomes another addition to the 1000+ songs I have in my repertoire.

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When you are about to start learning a song by hearing, the first thing you may want to determine is the key of the song.

This is to see if it’s likely to have more black notes in its melody and chords, and therefore be a little more uncomfortable to learn and play (especially if you’re still just starting off on the piano). If so, you may decide whether you need to transpose the song before (using an electronic piano’s transposer), or after you learn it (manually transposing the notes).

As you can imagine, finding out what a key is in a song is not an easy thing to teach, let alone write about. The simplest two methods I can think of are:

(i) listening to the starting bass and chord of the main melody, and

(ii) playing some notes of the main melody to try and determine the scale, and hence the key.

Method 1 – Hear the Home Chord

In the first method, you would first listen closely to try and find out what the primary or ‘home’ chord of the song is.

To do this, you listen to Melody 1 (see Song Structure), which usually comes after the Introduction (Do not use the Introduction to figure out the song’s key). Typically, you would listen to first chord that the song starts with. The bass would also give a hint of what this chord is, E.g., if the bass is G, then the chord should also – more often than not - be G major, and this is the ‘home chord’. This is the primary or main chord that the other chords - after their ‘progression’ - keep coming back to during the song.

As a double check, also try and hear if this chord is also the one that the song ends with. A song usually ends with the home chord (if it’s a Major one) or the song’s key. But this is not always the case, as the song could have a key change, or the composer might end the song with an unexpected one, other than the home chord.

A word about Major vs Minor Chord songs

Most songs have a major (rather than minor) chord as the home chord.

A song that is dominated by a Major chord tends to sound ‘positive’, ‘pleasant’, and ‘straightforward’. Many modern songs are made to sound ‘even happier’ by applying Major 7th and Major 9^th (common in New Age music) chords are used as the ‘home chords. Just a good-to-know point at this stage.

Method 2 – Match the Notes with the Scale

The second method of figuring out the key of the song is to learn about 10 or more notes of the main melody, write them down, and see which scale (and its accompanying notes) of the 12 keys do these melody notes match with most.

Every chord has its own unique set of scales (each of 8 notes) attached to it. It’s quite hard to remember all scales in the different chord names. Thankfully, most songs have either a basic Major or Minor chord as their primary home chord; and we only need to be concerned with these two here, in determining the song’s key.

The following is a table showing the Major scale for each of the 12 keys:

KEY:                                           SCALE:

C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C
Db	Eb	F	F#	Ab	Bb	C	Db
D	E	F#	G	A	B	Db	D
Eb	F	G	Ab	Bb	C	D	Eb
E	F#	Ab	A	B	Db	Eb	E
F	G	A	Bb	C	D	E	F
F#	Ab	Bb	B	Db	Eb	F	F#
G	A	B	C	D	E	F#	G
Ab	Bb	C	Db	Eb	F	G	Ab
A	B	Db	D	E	F#	Ab	A
Bb	C	D	Eb	F	G	A	Bb
B	Db	Eb	E	F#	Ab	Bb	B

You therefore look at the 10 notes of the main melody you’ve learned, and see how most of those notes match with the ones in above rows of scales. If they seem to match with the notes in F key (i.e. scale notes: G, A, Bb, C D, E ), then play the F chord with the melody notes and hear if they sound right. If they do, then F is the key of the song.

If they don’t, then by all means try matching the notes against the most of the same ones in any other row, until the sounds appear to match up.

If a song overall sounds like it’s in a more serious tone, it’s likely to be dominated by a ‘home’ minor chord, in which case the melody’s notes would likely fall in one of the minor scales shown in the above table. Just for good measure, here too, is the MINOR scale for each of the 12 keys.

KEY:                                           SCALE:

C	D	Eb	F	G	Ab	Bb	C
Db	Eb	E	F#	Ab	A	B	Db
D	E	F	G	A	Bb	C	D
Eb	F	F#	Ab	Bb	B	Db	Eb
E	F#	G	A	B	C	D	E
F	G	Ab	Bb	C	Db	Eb	F
F#	Ab	A	B	Db	D	E	F#
G	A	Bb	C	D	Eb	F	G
Ab	Bb	B	Db	Eb	E	F#	Ab
A	B	C	D	E	F	G	A
Bb	C	Db	Eb	F	F#	Ab	Bb
B	Db	D	E	F#	G	A	B

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